10 Best High Schools in the US

(Newser)
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BASIS Charter Schools will get a kick out of US News & World Report's 2017 list of the country's top public and charter high schools. Five of the top 10 schools are BASIS Charter Schools, including the Scottsdale, Ariz., school that took the top spot. The list is based on enrollment, graduation rates, diversity, state assessments, and more, with particular focus on how well schools prepare students for college. The top 10:

The most critical criteria would be: Which schools are the most selective in the students they accept (think Ivy League admissions), Which students families are wealthiest, Which get the largest % into college, Which have the largest % of 2 parent families, and which have the most educated parents, just to name a few things that come to mind, among dozens, or hundreds of other important factors. I was just reading a likely FAKE NEWS story about Ann Arbor being the most educated U.S. city, by an eye popping 17 points! So you'd think that Michigan would have a few schools in the list, if either of the articles polls was done objectively, or thoroughly analyzed by the common author, Arden Dier.

Let My People Go

Jul 25, 2017 1:30 PM CDT

As a public high school English and Social Studies teacher in California, I can understand why no traditional public schools would be included here. I have watched education decline in my state over the last 40 years from one of the best public school systems in the nation to one of the worst. People like to blame the influx of Mexicans for this, but nothing could be farther from the truth. Recent immigrants from Mexico actually do quite well until they begin to adopt the behavior patterns of their local peers. Political correctness, the deterioration of the nuclear family, and common core all contribute to the deterioration of our schools. it's against the law to expel students in California unless someone brings a gun or a knife to school. Administrators can't even suspend a disruptive student until he has gone through 8-10 different kinds of warnings, which has become a game to students and a nightmare for teachers who are treated like slaves by students, parents and administrators alike. When the worst students are sent to another school, the sending school must take one of the worst students from the target school in return, a kind of prisoner exchange. Good students are thrown under the bus in order to protect the bad students from the consequences of their actions. Government school education, at least in California, is really a form of child abuse. Anyone who loves his children needs to look elsewhere for a legitimate education.

The Master Sergeant

Apr 29, 2017 10:05 AM CDT

These ratings are not legitimate. They compare charters with public schools, and the two entities operate by different rules. After 20 years with the Air Force I taught for 14 in a large district in Arizona. Being a public district, we were required by law to accept any and all comers... special needs, every race and ethnicity, problem behaviors, you name it. With all that, the high school I where I taught advanced math ranked bronze for several years. Want to talk diversity? One year my last period calculus class went across the hall to sing happy birthday to their teacher from the prior year. The sang it in 17 different languages. That was also the same year my two calculus classes racked up one West Point admission and $4.5 million in scholarships. The point is, charters do not have to take all comers, and the first time a kid shows a hint of a behavior issue, they get the boot. Here is a suggestion for USN&WR and their ratings. Divide the rating into two classes: one for charter and private, and another for public schools. That way you would get a better idea of how each performs given the rules they have to operate within.